A first birthday update.....

gaffer · ‎12-11-2010

Believe it or not giffgaff launched its beta service nearly a year ago on 25^th Nov 2009 and so I thought it would be good idea to share with you what we have planned in the countdown to our first birthday and beyond.

There’s been a lot happening here at the Old Rectory and the team has been very busy, from developing new products and rationalising old ones, to getting our facebook community to help us spread the word.

If you ‘Like’ giffgaff on facebook, then you have probably seen us adding extra minutes to our £10 goodybag. We asked our facebook community to help us spread the word about giffgaff – the more they spread the word and the more “Likes” we got, the more minutes we added to the £10 goodybag. The good news is that we hit every target we set , so we’ve been able to add an extra 100 minutes.

So the £10 goodybag will have250 UK minutes, unlimited text and mobile internet for just £10 for any member buying it between 15^th November and 31^st December 2010. It’s a special offer to say thanks for spreading the word.

We’re also going to be updating our giffgaff Labs offer – our current 2p calls / 1p text Lab will be replaced with an exciting new one at the beginning of December. I can’t reveal too much about it at this stage, except to say it’s called “Hokey Cokey” and the fact that it’s quite unlike any product on the market today. Watch the blog for more details.

Remember too that we’re reaching the end of our second payback points earning period , so points earned between June and November will be paid out as cash, airtime balance or can be donated to our community nominated charity in early December.

With a couple of new products on the way and our 1^st birthday coming around soon we’ve taken the opportunity to spring (autumn?) clean our goodybag range also.

As you know, goodybags have been a great success overall but the £30 goodybag has always struggled in the popularity stakes. Even when we reduced the price its popularity didn’t pick up with less than 5% of our members taking it – so in the spirit of only having winners in our range we’re sending it to the great tariff resting place in the sky. It’ll be sad to see it go but fans of it will have until 21st November to buy one before we take it off the sale rack.

We’re also removing some phone numbers from within all goodybag allowances as they break our Terms and Conditions. These are being used for call forwarding services which aren’t part of the goodybag offer, so you can still call them, but outside of your goodybag allowance.

And finally, I can announce that our free mobile internet offer, which was due to end on Dec 1^st, is going to be extended until the end of February 2011. As many of you know, we developed a pricing plan in consultation with our members for data used outside of our goodybags a while back and the implementation of this has been delayed again.

So that’s all for now – as always, we’re interested in your views and feedback – so don’t be shy and post a comment.

The gaffer

gawright · ‎13-11-2010

I don't think it is giffgaff's decision to extend the free internet, they don't have a choice until o2 develop the charging system for them.

I too think it's a bad decision for giffgaff to end the unlimited goodybag, even though I could never imagine needing anywhere near the number of minutes that would require me to buy it.

navi51 · ‎13-11-2010

Having read the gaffers response to all the sub positive comments about the removal of the £30 goody bag and the fact he thinks he has done no wrong I think it is time to teach him how to suck eggs, although we should not have to !

Having spent all my life in the service industry you soon learn to get the job right because the customer is standing in front of you and can spit in your face, unlike the gaffers of this world hiding away in their cosy ivory towers totally insulated from irate customers.

£30 goody bag was a big attraction for a lot of people for use as and when required, and was the bait that got them to sign up.

To switch them to something less cost effective after enough have fallen for it is the lowest trick in the book. & has always been called BAIT & SWITCH

The most important thing the gaffer should bear in mind is that a happy customer will tell and refer 1,2,3 or maybe if your lucky 4-5 people, when they have done that they move on with life and forget about you.

On the other hand a DISSATISFIED customer will tell at least 10-20 people straight away and will never FORGET to slag you off whenever the subject of what ever it is comes up.

If by chance the new goody bag is as goody as the old one it should have been announced simultaneously.

I, like a lot of others have lost all faith and TRUST in giffgaff and will not be able to recommend it to any one else.

It is that easy to shoot yourself it the foot.

skinnyminny · ‎13-11-2010

i'm just pleased free internet been extended woohoo lol

gaffer · ‎13-11-2010

@stevefreak Re. other goodybags - no we're not thinking of removing any others. In fact we've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about how to improve them and try new things out. The community have been great at suggesting ideas through the forum and its also why we created the giffgaff labs so we could try out new ideas (from us and the community) in an "experimental" way.

andy0 · ‎13-11-2010

gaffer wrote:

We’re also removing some phone numbers from within all goodybag allowances as they break our Terms and Conditions. These are being used for call forwarding services which aren’t part of the goodybag offer, so you can still call them, but outside of your goodybag allowance.

This allegation is not true for all of the numbers on the list.

Some are used for perfectly ordinary SIM cards, and I'm unaware of any of these being abused.

Some are allocated to providers which are no longer trading and are not in use, which begs questions about the diagnostic processes used.

And to digress slightly, some numbers are indeed used for such services and were already excluded by giffgaff from the very start, so it seems peculiar to restate them as though just about to happen.

This last detail might add to the suspicion that the list may have merely been copied from another network, including their mistakes and implicit false allegations

icelightning · ‎13-11-2010

Also seems a bit odd that seeing as giffgaff is directly competing with things like Tesco Mobile and wants to increase its userbase, they'd take away something that helps in that competition. Especially when Tesco added their own similar scheme in order to compete with giffgaff you're basically just helping your competitors, all a bit backwards methinks.

andy0 · ‎13-11-2010

sevendotzero wrote:

Puzzled that 079788 numbers are no longer inclusive. 079788 is used by Truphone which is a mobile VoIP service, not a call forwarding service. These numbers are not charged at a premium from landlines. I can only assume it's something to do with the way O2 handles them.

O2 have not taken this action, and it seems unlikely that they would have mandated it on to giffgaff. And until now O2 have been the best network for including numbers and not falsely dressing up other reasons into this description.

For example, some other networks advertise that they have excellent rates for European mobiles, but charge 40p or 50p a minute for Channel Island and Isle of Man mobiles. One such network has completely removed its excepted list from being published on its website. O2 has included all these numbers in bundles for some time, and giffgaff has since launch,

But going back to the new list, I make a different assumption about this and one or two other similar numbers on there. I suspect that someone at giffgaff has copied this list from another mobile network.

dan44762000 · ‎13-11-2010

theres one simple solution to anyone who feels its not worth staying with giffgaff now that the £30 goodybag has gone, and thats too throw your moeny away on any other payg provider.

giffgaff remain the best value for money provider in the uk FACT.

onlyfoolsandhorses · ‎13-11-2010

As has been mentioned, some numbers on the excluded list are normal UK mobile sim numbers (not used for call forwarding) such as 079245 (travel sim). How can it be fair to exlcude these numbers?

ragnorak · ‎13-11-2010

It does sound like the £30 bag was more useful as a selling point than anything. It just sounds cool that the network offers unlimited calls if you need it. How about a £25 goodybag that has the same allowances as the £20 one but with unlimited landline calls too?